It is common practice in processing plants which use particulate solids in a batch mixing operation to use fully automated systems to handle major ingredients which might comprise 90% to 95% by weight of the batch mix. However, the remaining 5% to 10% of the particulate solids, which are termed minor ingredients, are handled manually. Often, the various batch mixes call for a large number of these minor ingredients, which are also known as additives. These might be colors, stabilizers, antioxidants, fillers, fibers, vitamins, minerals, activators and so forth, which are part of the product recipe. The number of minor ingredients which must be stored and processed often approaches 100 or more, when many products are produced simultaneously in a battery of batch mixers. In the prior art, no system is disclosed which attempts to store, formulate, and feed automatically the large number of minor solid ingredients in the manner of the present invention.
The prior art for the batch weighing and delivery of a large number of particulate solids minor ingredients used manual labor for making weighments on a bench type scale. These ingredients were manually scooped out of a shipping container such as a fiber drum, into a portable container and then delivered manually to a batch mixer, where they are added through a hatch. The recipe for formulating said minor ingredients batch was hand-written on a production information card, which was supplied to the formulator by a shift supervisor. There have been several attempts to devise batching systems for minor ingredients in the past, but none of them approach the large scope of the present system's capabilities in such a practical way. Nor do they utilize the actions of robots and bar codes to effect a fully integrated solids handling system. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,265,266 to Kierbow et al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,959,636 to Johnson et al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,822,056 to Hawes Jr et al, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,111,335 to Arya et. al, batching systems for minor ingredients are disclosed, but these do not foreshadow the present invention consisting of modular nests of four storage bins, cooperating with the weighing trolley, dedicated carriers, empty and filled carrier storage racks, the blender feed trolley, with robots transferring carriers back and forth, under computer control.